Coastal defence and marines? Am I the only one, who hates them?

[Mantriel]

I was wondering: Am I the only one who hates coastal defences? My vassals and colonies are building them, bancrupting them in the process.
I would be happy to pay 10€s to get them out of my game (I am playing only ironman to hunt the achievements, using mods would disable it).

 

[Titanius Puffin]

Edit: The original post also disliked marines, which has been edited out by the original poster. This doesn't seem very honest.

Original post:
I like marines . They let you raid ports and flush out fleets. Coastal defences, however, I'm not so fond of...

 

[grommile]

The only person who likes coastal defences is the AI, and whoever designed them at Paradox.

 

[Meglok]

I turned the damn things off so the ai wouldn't build them.

 

[Tavald]

Its use is way to situational.
The AI is building it for no reason.

It is not really bad, it is more anoying.
You need to start scaning the building submenu of each province of a country you want to invade.
It is simply boring. To click on enemy provinces scaning buildings.

Then after you conquer the land, the buildings are on the wrong places, then you are better deleting it.
To scan the same provinces again looking for buildings to delete, almost the same boring action as before.

 

[st360]

I like marines. They let you raid ports and flush out fleets.

You mean like a normal army?

 

[RAID186]

Honestly, whoever decided to implement them needs to find a new job. Both are actually a waste of time.

 

[Titanius Puffin]

You mean like a normal army?

I think armies are a bad choice (even in the older builds) - too slow.
In 1.29 it actually took six weeks to land (and another month to occupy).

I've written a lot on marines and naval landings (and I underrated how slow landings could be) but speed is the issue.

 

[I'm gaming]

Paradox should understand that war in EU4 doesn’t work that in history. There is no need to use tons of money for coastal defense in EU4. Before you add new mechanic from what was in history, you should think about the reason why that thing existed in history. After that, you should think about the way it will be worked in the game.

I can’t think that there was any meaningful thought in adding coastal defense. Maybe it can be used in multiplay. But how could you break AI economy to add multiplay-specific thing?

 

[Methuen of Melnibone]

Used marines once, found it pointless - is there any value to them ? specific scenarios perhaps ?

I tried coastal raiding with them, and just got smited by the AI air-dropping large stacks wherever I went.

Just stuck to normal armies after that, as with high enough moral & discipline even an opposed landing is easy enough.

In terms of coastal defences - I've built them in Gibraltar / Singapore / Cape Coast in a fit of role playing. Never really gained any value from it, though.

 

[brantodb01]

I think the only issue with them is that the AI builds them too much. I like them quite a bit to hold strategic locations and coast lines. (e.g. English channel, straight over Gibraltar, straight of Malacca) I'm not much of a navy guy so they help my fleet have the edge

 

[Titanius Puffin]

Used marines once, found it pointless - is there any value to them ? specific scenarios perhaps ?

I tried coastal raiding with them, and just got smited by the AI air-dropping large stacks wherever I went.

Just stuck to normal armies after that, as with high enough moral & discipline even an opposed landing is easy enough.

In terms of coastal defences - I've built them in Gibraltar / Singapore / Cape Coast in a fit of role playing. Never really gained any value from it, though.

I've had my own marines wiped out when raiding the Commonwealth. I was trying to take (obsolete) forts, which slowed them down.
The forts allowed a Commonwealth doomstack to arrive in time. I also wasn't watching them.
My bad. If I'd paid attention, they could have withdrawn (only takes 5 days to run back to the ship).

I was trying to take the provinces to flush out ships in port.

Marines do high risk missions. Sometimes the risk doesn't pay off.

 

[fleetothemoon]

I like coastal defenses. Place just one on each sea zone province and see those AI ships whittle away.

This also works against me sometimes too, which I'm cool with. What I'm not a fan of, is AI building them mindlessly without thought.

 

[Pale Blue]

I like coastal defenses. Place just one on each sea zone province and see those AI ships whittle away.

This also works against me sometimes too, which I'm cool with. What I'm not a fan of, is AI building them mindlessly without thought.

That's the naval battery which isn't available until several techs later.
Coastal defense just has increased disembark time and blockade force required. On non islands that is completely useless, because the modifiers are applied on a province basis, which means to be worth anything you need to spam them everywhere. The opportunity cost isnt worth that.
On single islands it is somewhat nice to make even more annoying islands forts like on Gotland or rhodes, but even even that is more than niche.

Naval batteries on the other side with the naval attrition can be very useful, especially in mp. You can for example build them to protect the channel or make the whole mediterranean/Indonesian/Carribbean region a deathtrap/sailor drain for anyone that goes to war with you.

 

[MK1980]

don't care about marines. probably never going to use them so they might as well not exist. but coastal forts are a stupid addition to the game. their main effect is to waste buildig slots and money of AI countries, so they actively make the game worse.

 

[AngelRay]

I don't use marines because i don't need them.

The battery thing is terrible. If it was a -X like a fort but for naval provinces, i'd build them in specific places (in addition to a fort). But as they are now, they are useless.

And the AI build them everywhere, which is terrible because you need to track them down and erase them, one by one, after you conquer the AI provinces.

 

[Greybeard0815]

I found Marines to be very useful in MP.
There were two strategies I used with them.
Just using stacks of 2k-4k I landed them in my opponents trade companies quickly taking the area and killing their trade income.
Or as tool to prepare a large invasion force. Sending marines in first on a province and then when its taken, quickly sending my main force directly into the province without having to disembark and thus face naval attrition.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

Used marines once, found it pointless - is there any value to them ? specific scenarios perhaps ?

I tried coastal raiding with them, and just got smited by the AI air-dropping large stacks wherever I went.

Just stuck to normal armies after that, as with high enough moral & discipline even an opposed landing is easy enough.

In terms of coastal defences - I've built them in Gibraltar / Singapore / Cape Coast in a fit of role playing. Never really gained any value from it, though.

In my Naples game (deliberately taking bad idea groups) I found Marines moderately useful on a couple occasions. Landing troops on Rhodes and Crete to killed the knights when my real army was fighting the actual war target. In particular when they had a coastal battery, not taking several months of attrition to land a stack was nice. I used them one against the Mameluks where surged down Alexandria and they placed all their troops blocking me entering Egypt and I really didn’t want to pay for a massive battle against superior numbers. Them landing and sieging down a province so my transports could dock with my army saved me some attrition.

But that was moderate value inquite niche circumstances with significant cost to obtain a useful number of them. So, unless you gain them for things you would otherwise do they aren’t worth it.

Make Marines use Naval maintenance and you have a nice little niche unit, though.

The coastal defenses are bloody annoying at times, but haven’t been more than that. They did keep me from killing Mann in several wars as Austria. The French Navy would arrive just in time to prevent landings. They do restrict you from baiting the AI navy out of position and engaging them there while you land But I have been able to work around it outside island OPMs. I might build them if I was Scotland and expecting Denmark to declare with the Faroe Islands as a war goal or a similar scenario, but again very niche. And the AI absolutely needs to stop spamming them

 

[Froonk]

Marines use sailors as manpower pool, that alone adds some usage to them.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

Marines use sailors as manpower pool, that alone adds some usage to them.

Except for a few tags, you need a significant investment to get marines (idea groups or 1000 ducat one per TC improvements). For that investment you could get far more manpower than you can utilize sailors via marines.